Compare a tenor horn, baritone, ebephone, tuba. All basically the same shame but different sizes. Because changing the size the instrument changes the pitch.
And you’d find the same for majority of instruments.
Varying sizes of wind instruments (clarinet, obo etc)
ukulele vs an acoustic guitar
Violin, viola, cello, bass
Electric piano shrank the acoustic version. I suppose electric guitars are smaller than acoustic versions. But like you say the majority
of instruments can’t just arbitrarily change size / shrink without impacting the sound
There’s also the ergonomics of having to play those instruments. A tiny violin or guitar would be very hard, if not nearly impossible to play, if not simply very uncomfortable. If we look at some electric guitars, they at least mimic the outer frame while leaving most of the body away, simply so that you have something to lean on and hold the guitar in its place.
I think they have. Not the traditional ones, obviously, but there’s nothing saying you can’t make smaller versions with tech.
The physics of their shape controls how traditional instruments sound.
Take the violin family. Violin is small, has a higher tone in general than the next bigger - the viola. Viola is a little bigger so it has a deeper richer sound than violin. Next bigger is the cello which is much deeper than the violin and quite a bit deeper than the viola, but not as deep as the biggest of them - the upright bass, or double bass, which is the bassiest bass sound that you can really get.
Now consider that each of those can be just the neck board where your finger work to hold strings down, and the part that is usually where the bowing or plucking goes on without any of the body. That’s because of technology!
Which instruments?
Also: laws of physics for some of them.
I am speaking broadly about the majority.
I’ve been pondering why, despite the numerous technological advancements, they have yet to reduce in size.
Compare a tenor horn, baritone, ebephone, tuba. All basically the same shame but different sizes. Because changing the size the instrument changes the pitch.
And you’d find the same for majority of instruments.
Varying sizes of wind instruments (clarinet, obo etc)
ukulele vs an acoustic guitar
Violin, viola, cello, bass
Electric piano shrank the acoustic version. I suppose electric guitars are smaller than acoustic versions. But like you say the majority of instruments can’t just arbitrarily change size / shrink without impacting the sound
There’s also the ergonomics of having to play those instruments. A tiny violin or guitar would be very hard, if not nearly impossible to play, if not simply very uncomfortable. If we look at some electric guitars, they at least mimic the outer frame while leaving most of the body away, simply so that you have something to lean on and hold the guitar in its place.
I think they have. Not the traditional ones, obviously, but there’s nothing saying you can’t make smaller versions with tech.
The physics of their shape controls how traditional instruments sound.
Take the violin family. Violin is small, has a higher tone in general than the next bigger - the viola. Viola is a little bigger so it has a deeper richer sound than violin. Next bigger is the cello which is much deeper than the violin and quite a bit deeper than the viola, but not as deep as the biggest of them - the upright bass, or double bass, which is the bassiest bass sound that you can really get.
Now consider that each of those can be just the neck board where your finger work to hold strings down, and the part that is usually where the bowing or plucking goes on without any of the body. That’s because of technology!
I’ll look for pics or links or something
Edit to add: if you look at these Wikipedia articles - even just scanning the pics - you’ll see what I mean.
EWI
Electric violin
Electric upright bass
My phone is MUCH smaller than an orchestra, and can play any symphony. That’s technology.
You can’t just say that digital audio, (the biggest technological advancement in audio since blowing in a tube), doesn’t count.